:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

There is one question you can ask while studying the Bible that will help you see more, learn more, and hopefully apply more than you ever could by just reading the stories.

The Bible is full of people who were just like us. It was written by people just like us. The details are there, tucked away in the spare prose and poetry. The trouble is how to unlock those details so that we can relate to the people in the Bible and sort out what it means for us.

We’re not used to reading books like the Bible. There are a lot of ways that’s true, but one obvious detail is that the Bible wasn’t typed on a computer with infinite pages. The writers of the Bible couldn’t pick up legal pads at Staples or drop off a manuscript at a printing press.

The Bible was written on scrolls—precious, limiting scrolls that could only hold so much. Long-winded writers need not apply for writing the Bible.

These authors were masterful in their economy of words. They distilled stories down to the most important details. If we see something in the Bible, no matter how small the detail, we need to ask, “Why is this here?”

This one question will help you dig into the backstory and the implied situations described in each story.

There are lots of other really good questions that will help you study Bible. However, this one question:

• Forces us to slow down
• Helps us read carefully
• Places us in the events recorded with new eyes

If we can answer the question, “Why is this here?” we may be able to figure out what the Bible has to say to us. We may find hidden treasures. We may even find out why we’re here.

While in seminary, a small conservative church hired me to teach their Wednesday evening Bible study. It was the perfect opportunity to get some practical ministry experience, even though I never saw myself leading that kind of church one day. I was also planning to get married in the near future, so the extra money didn’t hurt.

The group was rarely larger than ten people, but I took it very seriously. I dug through commentaries and prepared some pretty substantial sermons each week. I didn’t know how to lead a discussion, but I think they wanted a teacher, not a discussion leader.

They were very nice people, but as I drove home each week, I’d think to myself, “Phew! That was hard work. I’m glad that’s over for this week.”

Around the same time I was visiting my bride-to-be up in Vermont, and while there I’d go into the local prison with her parents for a church service. They had a very different approach to ministry that led to a rather different kind of car ride home from the meeting.

I’ve learned a lot from them about how to prepare for ministry. While there still may be occasions when I need to consult a commentary or prepare something, the most important preparation comes when I pray and worship the Lord each morning.

I don’t need perfect planning to minister. I don’t need to be perfect. I just need to be present with God.

While praying before going into the prison yesterday, the Lord put Luke 11 on my mind, which is Jesus’ teaching on prayer. I read it for a little while and thought of some stories I could share.

As I drove to the prison that evening, John 16 also came to mind, which is Jesus’ teaching on the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth. I thought that I could teach on John 16 in order to encourage the men to share some testimonies at the beginning, and that Luke 11 would serve as my main text before we moved on to the Alpha lesson about the church.

God wanted to teach us from those passages, but he didn’t need me to do it.

I sat down, introduced myself, and then the Holy Spirit taught us how the church works as one person after another shared what God was teaching him. One guy taught us for about 30 minutes what he’d been learning about prayer, faith, and pleasing God.

I kept my eye on the clock and nodded my head as each guy raised his hand to speak, but otherwise I did nothing. The Holy Spirit taught us our lesson. I saw John 16 unfold right before my eyes.

As if God wanted to drive home the point that he had things under control, the second hour of the meeting focused on how to dialogue with other faiths in the prison and how to respond to insults and anger. I’ve studied a lot about the mission of the church, but it seems that when the Holy Spirit is given room to work, the mission takes care of itself.

The men sang as they stacked the chairs and walked back to their dorms for the evening, smiling and encouraging one another. A lot of ministry happened last night, and I did very little of it. I did one thing: I got out of God’s way and followed his lead.

I drove home last night joyful and encouraged, thankful that ministry does not have to be hard, draining work bearing unknown fruit that we may never see. Perfect preparation doesn’t take place through studies but through God’s Spirit.

Today’s post on perfection is part of Bonnie Gray’s Thursday series. For more posts on perfection, visit Bonnie’s blog and begin with her post: The Top 5 Lies of Perfectionism.

What do we gain by explaining difficult Bible passages?

Yesterday I mentioned that I generally expect the Bible to provide comfort, guidance, and direction rather than challenging or disturbing me. Today I’d like to discuss what we gain by trying to figure out the disturbing passages of the Bible.

When I read the Psalms, I often run into difficult questions. Why are you far away God? Why do the wicked prosper? Why has calamity fallen upon me? Why do the righteous suffer? This reveals a complex picture of God that defies simple rules or our hope that the Bible fits together neatly.

The God of the Old Testament and the God revealed in the love and suffering of Jesus are the same. And this leaves us with an important question. What do we gain by trying to weave them together seamlessly?

Conservative and liberal Christians have tried to make them fit together and offer a series of scenarios to explain the tough, disturbing passages of the Bible. I’d like to ask, Should we do this?

I’m not saying that it can’t be done. I’m just saying that we may not be able to do it, and in fact, there are some good reasons to believe that our attempts are not necessarily grounded in good reasons.

Mistake #1: God Must Always Make Sense

If we want the Bible to fit together perfectly and to never disturb us, I think we reveal some presuppositions about God and the Bible. We presuppose that God will always act within our understanding. In fact, if God can’t act in ways that we understand, then he can’t be God or at least a good God.

Christians and atheists make this mistake. I’m at a place in my faith where I’ll certainly try to figure God out, but I’m leaning more toward faith and mystery when I can’t make sense of things in the Bible.

Mistake #2: The Bible Is Our Foundation

Many Christians also presuppose that the Bible can’t have unexplained mysteries in order to be the foundation for our faith. There are two problems here. First of all, our faith stands and falls on God himself and his revelation to us. The Bible is part of his essential revelation, but it does not make up the whole.

In fact, we read in the Bible that Jesus lamented how the teachers of the law searched the scriptures and missed the fact that the scriptures pointed to him—as in the person of Jesus. Paul also asserted that there is no other foundation than Jesus Christ. And therefore, our faith surely benefits tremendously with the Bible, but if every Bible was locked up, Christianity would still continue.

In addition, in order for the Bible to be God’s inspired message to us, we should expect it to baffle and confuse us sometimes. If we are dealing with a deity who is truly greater than us, I think it’s reasonable to expect some uncertainty in the Bible. In fact, I’d say that the Bible encourages hard questions and sometimes does not offer the simple, assuring solutions we crave.

What Do We Gain by Explaining the Bible’s Tough Passages?

I’m driving at this simple point: we don’t really gain all that much by trying to “solve” the passages in the Bible that disturb us. No matter where we land on the issues at hand, such as the conquest of Canaan, we’ll have a measure of uncertainty and dissatisfaction.

We can still try to understand the baffling and disturbing passages of the Bible, but we should expect to sometimes hit a number of possible turns that leave us confused and lost. A disturbing passage in the Bible may rattle our faith, but our faith can endure because God is alive today and calling us to follow him despite our doubts.

God can live with our doubts. Can we?

The Next Post: Do the Disturbing Passages Negate the Rest of the Bible?

When I sit down to read the Bible, it’s sometimes tough to jump into the world of the Bible after I’m thinking about doing the dishes, my to-do list, or cleaning out the rabbit’s litter box.

Other times I can read it perfectly well, but don’t get much out of it. I think to myself, was that really worth it?

Yesterday we looked at some good reasons to read the Bible, but how exactly do we make sure our Bible reading is doing what it’s supposed to do? I know why I need the Bible and the ways it can bring me closer to God, but what should I do when it doesn’t meet that goal?

There are plenty of different approaches, and some may feel quite different from each other, which is kind of how things work in a relationship with God. There are no magic formulas.

Sit with a Few Verses for a While

Whether you call it Lectio Divina, meditation, or plain old prayer, meditating on a verse of scripture for a while is a great way absorb it and to let God speak to you. Read a passage of one or two verses slowly, sit with it, read it again, and let it soak in for another 5-10 minutes. Ask God to speak through the passage and pay attention to any words or concepts that jump out at you.

If you want to learn more about praying the Bible, check out my friend Lisa Delay’s site.

Read Big Chunks and Reread Smaller Portions

My favorite way to read the Bible involves a quick overview reading (4-5 chapters per day) followed by a slow follow up reading (1 chapter per day) of a particular book. I just began an overview reading of the book of 1 Corinthians, and I hope to follow that with a closer reading that focuses on how Paul addresses conflict and false teaching.

This approach helps me to see both the forests and the trees and helps me absorb a lot more of the biblical narrative so that God can use it in my life either today or in the future.

Try a Different Translation

The New Living Translation has helped me jump into my daily Bible reading much easier due to its readable style. I still use the New Revised Standard for serious study, but for daily reading, the right translation can launch you on your way.

Invest in Background Reading

This is the more academic part of Bible study, but really, anyone can do it in small chunks and enjoy the benefits. There may be dry moments when you’re reading a book or article about the background of a passage, but the more familiar you become with the biblical world, the more it will make sense.

How many other ancient books do we read on a regular basis? Would it really be a good idea to read ancient literature without some knowledge of the context and time?

To that end, we need Bible dictionaries, articles, introductions, and other books to set us straight. In addition, the Old Testament is critical background reading for the New Testament. Unless you understand the Old Testament Law, you won’t have an inkling of how revolutionary and controversial the actions of Jesus were.

While the background reading may put you to sleep, you’ll eventually read the Bible with your eyes wide open as you realize that these stories are about people just like us who wrestled with God and took leaps of faith.

For a little more on this, check out my brief E-book: How to Study the New Testament Like a Pro. You can download it as a PDF for free and will discover some simple free and low-cost ways to get more out of your Bible study time.

Still hungry for more? if you’re interested in New Testament background, dig into NT Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God and Jesus and The Victory of God.

Do you have a favorite book or resource for your own Bible study? What’s a must-have?

“God has not given us a Spirit of fear” is one of those snippets of scripture that I passed over throughout high school, college, and even seminary. Yeah, yeah, God is good. While we should have a healthy fear of him, the normal Christian life is characterized by peace and hope and love and blue skies and daisies. I knew it.

Meanwhile I lived as a captive to fear—namely a spirit of fear.

So I had my anxiety attacks, I began each day trying to catch my breath, and drove other people nuts with my anxiety about toasters catching on fire, losing my keys, or dying from high cholesterol.

When receiving prayer one day, that verse from Romans 8:15 worked like a real sword that the Spirit used to hack at the spirit of fear that had taken hold in my life. It’s something I’ve written about often because in that moment a passage of scripture did what it’s supposed to do: freed me to know God in a deeper way.

The Bible was unchained, and God’s Kingdom became a reality that made my seminary classes seem a puddle in sandbox in comparison to the wind and waves that crashed onto a beach.

Yesterday I looked into some reasons why we shouldn’t read the Bible. Today, I want to give some good reasons why we should read the Bible.

Storing Up

The daily work of reading the Bible may not yield fantastic results immediately. I read that verse from Romans many times without anything happening. However, at just the right time God used that verse to break me free. What are we storing up today for God’s work tomorrow?

Reorienting

Scripture reconnects us with God’s plans, methods, and hope for us. The Bible tells us how things were, how they are, and how they will become. We have every reason to expect the world of the Bible to become our world—it was written to be taken seriously rather than partially explained away.

That means there will be some cultural changes, but God is still actively involved in his creation and through his people. The Bible keeps us on the same page with God’s counter-narrative that challenges the twisted values of our culture’s narrative that seep into our lives and into the Church. The Bible keeps us moving into God’s Kingdom.

While the Bible is about God, it is very much a story written for us today.

Worshipping

Yesterday I mentioned that God is not found in the pages of the Bible per se, but the Bible does lead us to God—it testifies concerning the God we long to meet. To that point, using scripture in our personal and corporate worship is a way to take our focus away from ourselves and our problems.

I’m sure I’m missing some other reasons to read the Bible, but these are the big three in my experience. Anything else to add?

Tomorrow’s Post: OK, we know why we should read the Bible, but how should we do it? I’ll share a few thoughts on how to keep the same old 66 books fresh and relevant.

I am a computer addict who bows down before the square, glowing screen of my lap top. It’s my portal into creativity, friendships, and information. Sometimes it’s hard to step away from it, to remove its life by powering it down, and to clamp it shut.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Noticing my addiction had grown worse with my attempt to make a go of full time freelance writing, I took action during Lent. While I couldn’t completely cut myself off from the computer, I developed an action plan.

6 PM and Sunday Cut Off

At 6 PM each night I shut down my computer and closed the screen. I even put a book or some papers on top of it so I wouldn’t have to look at it. Laugh at me if you must, but I know some of you can relate. On Sundays I left the computer closed  up, not even touching it.

It was freeing at first, but toward the last week of Lent I had a few projects running that demanded some immediate attention in order to meet deadlines. Since my main goal was to avoid mindlessly flipping through blogs and social media sites, I gave myself a few passes to send crucial e-mails and to visit some work-related sites.

Overall, I realized that while I’m driven to work hard and don’t mind long hours, I tend to work myself into the ground and to burn out while frittering my time away on social media. Setting aside a few hours in the evening as a safe zone helped me stay up on dishes, laundry, and other household stuff while also making me more available to hang out with my wife when she wasn’t working on a paper for grad school. I even had some time to read a book or magazine for leisure.

Imagine that!

In addition, I never missed anything all that important be limiting my time online. That’s still a tough one to believe despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Worship in the Morning

The other part of my Lent that is still a work in progress was my morning worship time. This involved sitting to journal some thoughts and listening to some worship music for about 20 minutes. I often did something else while listening to the music. On the days I forgot to take this time, I noticed a huge different in my attitude and in my overall approach to my day.

It is wonderful to sit, to wait for God to come, and to spend time in his presence. When I rush into my day without that, things can go downhill quickly. Jesus described himself as a vine that we are connected to as branches. We don’t stay connected by  saying a prayer once. Remaining in Jesus is a daily practice.

What’s Next…

I’ll keep working on the morning worship time. I’m not calling it devotions because my time in scripture is separate from this. I need time to be reoriented by scripture, but I also need time to sit, listen, and praise him. I’m going to generally adhere to the 6 PM and Sunday cut off, but I’ll give myself more generous allowances if need be.

In the process of working on this, I’ve discovered that I’m particularly obsessed with checking my e-mail. I think it took hold during my last dead-end job. I’d check my e-mail constantly because the interactions with people outside of my workplace helped preserve my sanity—reminding me that my dysfunctional employer was not the norm. Now that I’m freelancing full time I need to break the e-mail-checking habit.

Checking my e-mail has turned into a control and obsession problem in which I can’t stand the thought that an important e-mail could be waiting for me. Whether or not that e-mail is there, and it frequently isn’t, I need to let go of that control. I’m thinking of setting up 3-4 e-mail checking times throughout my day.

What did you give up for Lent?

What were benefits?

What’s next?

I’m going to keep working on taking

While the Old Testament is essential for understanding the New Testament, roughly four-hundred years transpired after the last Old Testament book was written. New interpretations of the Old Testament emerged in between the testaments, the Intertestamental period, due to religious, political, and socio-economic events.

Israel began this period under Medo-Persian rule. Then the Greeks took over before a Jewish Dynasty revolted and took control. After a brief time of Jewish rule, the Romans, those mentioned in the New Testament, conspired to take over.

During these tumultuous years Jewish writers penned a series of books known as Intertestamental literature. Some of these books developed a strong sense of the apocalyptic—anticipating the immanent return of God to save his people and to punish evil-doers. In fact, the book of Revelation in the NT is a Christian version of Jewish apocalyptic, which is something quite different than a chronicle of events that would happen in the future.

Messianic movements rose up from the fertile ground of apocalyptic literature and various Jewish sects emerged with different applications of the Old Testament to their situations. Many scholars today view Jesus as a prophet in the apocalyptic tradition.

In order to better understand how people responded to Jesus, we need a clear picture of not only the Old Testament but also how his contemporaries read, interpreted, and applied it to their times. John the Baptist, Herod, The Pharisees, the crowds, and the disciples come to life when we read about Jesus with an awareness of his setting, the expectations of his audience, and the tumultuous period leading up to his ministry.

Suggestions for Historical Background Research

• Your best sources will be Bible Dictionaries and commentaries. Some basic Bible dictionaries are fairly inexpensive to purchase in sets of two or four if you wait for the right sale at Christian Book Distributors, though many churches should have some basic dictionaries on hand in a library. My favorite is the InterVarsity press series that’s available on a more affordable CD-ROM. 
• Some local libraries will also carry the works of popular authors such as Dominic Crossan who may not hold to orthodox views of Jesus, but who can flesh out the historical setting quite well in books such as Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. Libraries may also carry some worn dictionaries or commentaries that may be of use for extracting historical information.
• For those with a little extra time, there is a wealth of information on the Intertestamental period’s literature on the New Testament in Larry Helyer’s book Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period.
• I know you’re thinking it, so I’ll just say it: Wikipedia. Yes, you can learn a ton about the world of Jesus by reading articles on Wikipedia about the various groups, events, and characters that shaped the world of the New Testament. For starters, look up the Hasmonean Dynasty and read about its fall to the Roman dynasty of Herod.

Image credit: Jim Larranaga.

The Bible can be tough to dive into. Where should a student of scripture begin? Most Christians want to understand Jesus and the letters that his followers wrote, but they can be tough to figure out.

When we ask questions such as, “Why did Jesus say that?” or “Why did Paul write this?” we will encounter a great deal of complexity and mystery. If we can’t answer these first questions, then it will be even more difficult to discern what they mean for us today. This application to everyday life is the real pay-off for Christians.

Studying the Bible well takes some time and effort, but just about any Christian can learn how to study it effectively with a little direction. After investing time into the study of scripture you’ll soon find it easier to read. Certain themes and connections will emerge, and you’ll not only arrive at a better understanding, but a better ability to apply it to your life.

Each day next week we’ll take a look at some simple steps toward effective study of the New Testament.